Sandwich cop charged with assault

A veteran Sandwich police officer pleaded not guilty Friday to a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after he allegedly rammed a family member's car repeatedly on Route 6, eventually running it off the road.

BARNSTABLE — A veteran Sandwich police officer pleaded not guilty Friday to a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after he allegedly rammed a family member's car repeatedly on Route 6, eventually running it off the road.

Michael F. Hoadley, 46, who joined the department 27 years ago and has faced disciplinary action before, also was charged with negligent operation of a motor vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident. Barnstable District Judge W. James O'Neill ordered him to wear a GPS tracker and stay away from the alleged victim and the alleged victim's children until a March 11 pretrial hearing.

"Mr. Hoadley denies this totally," attorney Terrance O'Connell, a former Sandwich police officer, told O'Neill during the late afternoon arraignment.

The family member was not injured in the incident, which happened late Thursday, police said.

At about 10:15 that night, the relative was leaving a friend's home and noticed a car approaching from behind, a prosecutor said in court. Fearing Hoadley was the driver, the relative deviated from a normal route and merged onto Route 6.

The 2004 Dodge Durango followed the relative's 2008 Chrysler 300 eastbound on Route 6 and rammed it twice from behind before pulling along the left side and hit it a third time, causing it to spin into a snowbank in the median, east of Exit 2, a state police report filed in court said.

The alleged victim later went with another family member to the Sandwich Police Department and reported having been choked and thrown to the ground by Hoadley in the past, the report said.

The Sandwich police called in state police to investigate.

At about 6:30 a.m., Hoadley was stopped in his Durango by police and taken to the state police barracks in Bourne, the report said. His car appeared to have damage to the front bumper and right headlight consistent with the collision the relative described.

Hoadley denied any knowledge of the incident and said if there were any new damage to his car, the alleged victim set him up by hiring someone to steal his car, hit the other vehicle and then return his car to his home, the report said.

The Sandwich Police Department immediately suspended Hoadley and placed him on paid leave.

The arraignment was held up Friday after the prosecution requested that a psychologist evaluate Hoadley's competence, because of the alleged victim's assertion that Hoadley had made suicidal threats in the past.

When arraignment reconvened, the psychologist testified that Hoadley, who late last year spent 65 days in a short-term, intensive residential treatment center for rescue personnel and has prescriptions for Celexa — an antidepressant — and clonazepam — an anti-anxiety medication — was rational and understood the charges against him.

Hoadley has faced department discipline before.

He served a three-month suspension for an off-duty incident in December 2010. In that incident, Hoadley struck a light post with his car at a Forestdale gas station and left the scene without reporting it, the department's investigation showed.

Hoadley, who returned to fix the post the next morning, then tried to blame the crash on his son.

Hoadley was found to have violated state law by leaving the scene of an accident with property damage, according to the report, but he was not charged criminally.

He also "violated the public trust and brought disrepute upon the entire department," the internal investigation found.

The department's investigation found Hoadley had been drinking alcohol the night of the crash on Dec. 17, 2010. He adamantly denied being drunk and the police found no evidence to charge him with operating under the influence of alcohol.

In 2011, Hoadley was placed on paid administrative leave while the department investigated allegations by another officer that he sent harassing text messages.

In that case, it is unclear if the department disciplined Hoadley because the town denied a request by the Times to release the internal investigation, citing privacy and the investigatory exemption.